1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to pharmaceutical cabinets and particularly to lockable pharmaceutical cabinets comprising a plurality of medication bins.
2. Prior Art
Lockable pharmaceutical cabinets and carts are widely used in hospitals and other medical care facilities. Keeping pharmaceutical products secure from unauthorized access is a matter of major concern in the medical care facilities, not only to protect against theft and misuse of the pharmaceuticals but also to comply with legal requirements concerning controlled substances. Security of pharmaceutical carts used for delivering and dispensing pharmaceutical substances are of particular concern since the carts are of necessity used in areas where they are within easy reach of patients and other non-medical personnel. It is a general requirement in hospitals and the like that pharmaceutical carts be locked when not attended by an authorized person. It is therefore desirable to provide a cabinet or cart which may be readily locked and unlocked and which provides convenient storage and access for preselected pharmaceuticals to be dispensed. Pharmaceuticals to be dispensed may be contained within individual dispensing bins to be removed from the pharmaceutical cart or cabinet, one at a time. It is therefore desirable to provide an arrangement in which an individual dispensing bin may be conveniently removed and the remaining bins may be made secure in a convenient manner.
The U.S. Pat. No. 4,616,890 to J. M. Romick (issued Oct. 14, 1986) discloses a medication cart including cassettes of medication bins. Each cassette includes a plurality of stacked drawers slidably contained within a cabinet frame and a plurality of medication bins contained within each of the drawers. The several drawers of a cassette may be locked by means of a single locking bar internal to the cabinet frame and extending vertically along one side thereof. The locking bar engages each drawer individually and is operable in the vertical direction by means of a key lock.
The U.S. Pat. No. 3,893,740 to W. G. England (issued Jul. 8, 1975) discloses a multiple drawer cabinet having a lockable vertically extending locking bar external to the cabinet and pivotally attached to one edge thereof. The locking bar, in its locked position, extends along the front of several drawers to obstruct opening movement. The U.S. Pat. No. 3,902,603 to J. D. Wilson (issued Sep. 2, 1975) discloses a similarly positioned drawer retaining bar.
A disadvantage of the arrangement disclosed in the Romick patent is that the bins for containing the substances to be dispensed are contained within drawers. When such a cart is used for dispensing pharmaceuticals, a drawer containing several bins has to be at least partially withdrawn from the cabinet frame to gain access to any one of the bins. Closing the drawer each time after removal of a bin is inconvenient, but an open drawer detracts from a secure environment. The prior art arrangement does not provide for a secure and convenient access to individual bins and makes no provision for retaining or locking individually removable bins, not contained within a drawer. Similar disadvantages obtain with respect to other known prior art arrangements.
A further disadvantage of prior art pharmaceutical dispensing arrangements using removable cassettes for retaining a plurality of medicine dispensing bins is that the handling of the cassettes is made difficult by the weight of the cassette and a structure providing a lightweight cassette for medicine bins is desirable.